Opportunity History

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) anticipates that request for proposals (RFP) NHLBI-HG-10-01 will be available on or about Monday, June 8, 2009. This project, solicited on behalf of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), is named the Laboratory, Data Analysis and Coordination Center (LDACC). It is a component of a larger project named the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx). The GTEx project objective is to provide the scientific community a resource with which to study human gene expression and regulation and its relationship to genetic variation. This project will collect and analyze multiple human tissues from donors who are also densely genotyped, to assess genetic variation within their genomes. By analyzing global RNA expression within individual tissues and treating the expression levels of genes as quantitative traits, variations in gene expression that are highly correlated with genetic variation can be identified as expression quantitative trait loci, or eQTLs.

Despite the rapid progress achieved using genome-wide association studies to identify genetic changes associated with common human diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, and stroke, a large majority of these genetic changes lies outside of the protein-coding regions of genes and often even outside of the genes themselves, making it difficult to discern which genes are affected and by what mechanism. The comprehensive identification of human eQTLs will greatly help to identify genes whose expression is affected by genetic variation and will provide a valuable basis on which to study the mechanism of that gene regulation.

The GTEx project is a 2.5 year pilot with the primary goal of testing the feasibility of collecting high-quality RNA and DNA from multiple tissues from approximately 160 donors identified through low post-mortem interval autopsy or organ transplant settings. For a small subset of tissues, collection from living surgery patients will also be performed to compare to the autopsy-derived tissues. If the pilot phase proves successful, the project will be scaled up to involve approximately 1,000 donors.

The project will also involve consultation and research into the ethical, legal and social issues raised by the research, support for statistical methods development, and creation of a database to house existing and GTEx-generated eQTL data. The database will allow users to view and download computed eQTL results and to provide a controlled access system for de-identified individual-level genotype, expression, and clinical data. The associated tissue repository will also serve as a resource for many additional kinds of analyses.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS; See: http://www.genome.gov/gwastudies) have shown great promise in identifying genetic loci associated with common human diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Despite this progress, the majority of the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and other genetic changes significantly associated with phenotype, lie outside of the protein-coding regions of genes and often even outside of the genes themselves. This makes it difficult to discern which genes underlie the association signals and by what mechanism. This Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project, an NIH Roadmap Initiative (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/GTEx), aims to provide this information.

A cost reimbursement completion type contract with one or more priced options is anticipated. This will be awarded under full and open competition as a negotiated acquisition. The LDACC is anticipated to be awarded on or about 5/07/2010. The NHLBI anticipates awarding a contract based on technical merit and funds availability.

This announcement is not a request for proposals (RFP) and, although one award is anticipated, the Government is not committed to award a contract pursuant to this announcement. The RFP will be available on the FedBizOpps web page at http://fedbizopps.gov. Prospective Offerors are responsible for downloading the RFP and all attachments. It is also the Offerors’ responsibility to monitor the FedBizOpps web page for the release of any amendments to the RFP. The RFP will contain all the information and details to allow potential Offerors to prepare and submit a contract proposal. This acquisition has been designated as a full and open competition under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541711. Subcontracting opportunities are anticipated during the course of this contract award.

NOTE: PREPARATION COSTS – This presolicitation notice does not commit the Government to pay for preparation and submission of any materials. The NHLBI is a consolidated Office of Acquisitions and serves as the R&D buyer for the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) as well as five (5) other Institutes and Centers of the NIH.